>>93879

Just how averages work innit. There are more people below that level than above it. Remember median means the middle of the range of values, as opposed to a modal or mean average, but I don't know precisely how they work it out for national income.

In a great many ways statistics like that are both very useful, but also entirely meaningless. The way that lad is using them, or at least the argument he's trying to prop up with them, are dodgy at best.

>>93879

There are loads of single parents, single-person households, doleys, pensioners etc.

>>93877

>What the fuck are you even on about?

If you follow the thread in order from >>93852, I think it's perfectly clear what I'm on about. I'm arguing against a facile and factually inaccurate mischaracterisation of a place, the people who live there and the people and places like it.

>Kids that grow up there leave at the first possible chance and rarely come back.

South Elsmall and South Kirkby has the same median age as the UK as a whole (40) and does not have a statistically significant difference in the proportion of people in their 20s.

Are you getting it now?

https://www.ukcensusdata.com/south-elmsall-and-south-kirkby-e05001457

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2019estimates

>>93881

No, you're still talking shite, and I don't really understand what argument you're making against my point of view.

Fair enough if it's a factually inaccurate characterisation, but what's your explanation for these issues? Why is the housing market over-inflated despite the bounty of good, cheap houses in the working man's paradise that is South Kirkby?

If your argument is essentially "there is no housing crisis, me and tory voters like me are doing fine" please just come out and say it so I can stop scratching my head over what you're trying to say.

>>93882

>what's your explanation for these issues?

We do have a shortage of housing in many areas, we should be building more houses, but there's more to it than that. The problem is not just one of supply and demand, but of allocation.

People make economically irrational decisions about housing, because it's a potent class signifier. Our shortage is not primarily of places to live, or places to live within reasonable travel distance of well-paying jobs, but housing that is palatable to our class prejudices.

It's a carbon copy of our skills problem - we've got hundreds of thousands of unemployed and under-employed graduates, but crippling shortages of skilled vocational workers in a wide range of fields. Schools and parents will encourage young people to get a degree in archaeology or sociology despite the fact that statistically it'll reduce their earning potential, while overlooking or actively discouraging qualifications that are quicker, cheaper and easier to acquire and offer excellent employment options.

Our class hierarchy now has a big overlap in the middle - an upper-working-class who are financially secure but culturally disenfranchised and a middle-precariat who have cultural status but are hugely economically insecure. Those two groups have radically different concerns, with the former being reasonably well-served by the housing market.

Many "post-industrial shitholes" actually have average- or below-average levels of poverty and unemployment, while some of the poorest areas of the country are within walking distance of some of the richest. Geographic isolation and a lack of jobs in the local area might explain why Redcar and Barrow-in-Furness are blighted with poverty, but it certainly doesn't explain why Salford or Tower Hamlets are so poor.

We need to build more homes, but cramming yet more flats into a handful of already-overcrowded places isn't much of a solution to anything. The country needs to seriously re-evaluate the meaning of class and place in the 21st century and the Labour party desperately needs to examine why they stopped being the party of the working class.

>>93883

Well, okay, now that you've explained a bit more deeply I am more sympathetic to your argument. But I think you are still reaching a little bit. Lots of what you say is true, but I never said anything to the contrary either. By the same token as the way you say these earnest working class sorts don't like being patronised and are happy with their lot in life- They are also capable of being extremely frank in recognising when something is undesirable in their community, they don't tend to sugar coat it.

I am a working class person, from a post industrial shithole, calling it a post industrial shithole, because it's a post industrial shithole. You can post statistics at me all you want, I still know there are places I'd rather live than where I live now. You'd be right I'm "doing alright", I'm squarely in the bracket of the median income households you mentioned earlier, and I don't hate my lot in life by any means. But you can't tell me the area I live isn't a scruffy dive full of junkies and petty criminals. In fact I was woken up earlier this morning to make that 6:00am post by the fire brigade breaking into the flat next door, presumably because the junkie who lives there was non-responding again. I can assure you this is no exaggeration or elaborate tall tale, it's just a regular occurrence round here.

You're doing the exact same patronising, out of touch thing you accuse the Labour party of doing, in telling me I'm wrong about that and pearl clutching your statistics. I've lived it for thirty odd years.

By all means we need to re-evaluate the meaning of class, I won't disagree there. But what exactly does that have to do with housing, in real terms? Actual bricks and mortar material terms? Real life?

>>93871
Your claiming all ex-pit villages or post industrial villages are basically no go zones then carry on with an example of leisure time involving (presumably) getting pissed while moaning about an entire £6 for a taxi.
You seem to want your cake and eat it, yes you might think it sucks you (again presumably) cant afford to buy in a popular area, and yes the housing market is fucked every which way BUT....
Life isnt fair and never has been. I'm originally from Nottingham and I bought a 3 bed semi in a North Notts ex pit village and commute in to Nottingham, yeah sure where I live you aren't going to get stimulating intellectual conversations or a banging night life in an ex pit village but its a million miles away from what you describe it as. Kind of repeating what someone else said Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Birmingham are all within an hours drive, and using the same hour drive ratio some absolutely stunning countryside is accessible.
Don't tell me you cant afford to get yourself mobile either, sure it may involve cutting back on some things and saving but once the initial outlay of getting a license is over you have unlocked a whole swaith of the country.
TL:DR - life isn't fair, get over it and learn to compromise

>>93885

The word I am tempted to use here is "cope".

I can't be the only working class northerner who can still see what's in front of my bloody face without farcically trying to pretend my own shit smells of roses.

The other week you lot were telling me we all have to give up our cars and I'm a bastard for wanting to keep mine, so don't go bringing the lovely countryside drives into it. Make your fucking minds up.

>>93887

Well, yes, that's basically what it is. People will go to some pretty extreme lengths to avoid getting buyer's remorse over something as major as a house, and in this case it seems to have gone so far as to turn them into Telegraph readers.

I'm sure there are lovely places to live tucked away in lots of little villages all over Britain but this thread is just full of some wierd "know your place, povvos" rhetoric, only framed what is no doubt supposed to be a very clever turn-about to paint it as anti-snobbery.

Very perplexing.

>>93887
>I can't be the only working class northerner who can still see what's in front of my bloody face without farcically trying to pretend my own shit smells of roses.

Don't even have to be northern about it, I grew up in a midlands shithole and I'm still not going back to it. Plenty of shitholes down south as well if we're playing university rules, we can't all live in Portsmouth or give up on our careers to live the 30k pa humdrum of a job and life we hate with no hope of advancement for ourselves or our children.

tl;dr we need teleporters.

>>93884

You don't have to relish living in what you regard as an ex-industrial shithole, but there's a very big difference between "there's nowhere to live in this country" and "I don't like living near povvos". There's also a pretty obvious contradiction in wanting to live in a place where all the plebs have been priced out without paying a premium for it.

>>93889

>we can't all live in Portsmouth or give up on our careers to live the 30k pa humdrum of a job and life we hate with no hope of advancement for ourselves or our children

By the same token, most people are about average. A bog-standard life in Britain is still pretty good. Wanting more than that is fine, but it isn't yours by rights. If you set out in life expecting to do better than most people, basic maths says that there's a good chance you'll be disappointed.

>>93890
Surely only 1% of people are actually average?

I for one don't want to live in this country period.

>>93892
Do you currently own a house? Are you looking to sell it?

>>93890
>A bog-standard life in Britain is still pretty good

Not really no. Even on an objective level, across the OECD the cost of living in rising (fucking housing for a start) which is steadily squeezing incomes while nationally underemployment is chronic and there's an awful lot of jobs compared to careers. The travesty of the divide in HDI and productivity between affluent areas in the SE and Edinburgh is indicative that most of the country isn't realising its potential with a rising inequality and falling social mobility that locks people into their station. Something felt especially clearly in the outcomes of those living in our shitholes.

>If you set out in life expecting to do better than most people, basic maths says that there's a good chance you'll be disappointed.

Well, speaking on a personal level it's fortunate that I'm no good at maths then because you're offering a dire situation as acceptable. I mean I certainly can't do my career outside of the expensive areas so it's a total non-starter and no, keeping my income by running the Amazon warehouse or benefits office won't make up the difference because it's also about more than money.

>>93894

But lad, you don't need your career when you could afford to pay your mortgage by pushing the trolleys at Asda if you move to South Elmsall. Clearly the only reason you don't do that is because you think you're above it. Why are you such a snob?

>>93895
Don't tempt me, lad. 130k for a 3 bed:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/107973788#/

Could easily take on a good chunk of that mortgage and get myself an absolutely bone-idle job where I can spend the rest of my life between the shed, greenhouse, garage and playing Sim City 4 on an old computer in one of the spare rooms. Wouldn't know the meaning of stress.

>>93896

A half mile walk and half an hour on the train to Leeds, Sheffield or York.

You couldn't live there though obviously, because there are no jobs.

>>93894

We have the 13th highest HDI in the world - 16th after adjusting for inequality. There is a very short list of mostly small countries that enjoy a higher standard of living than us and the difference is really quite marginal.

We're part of one of the most prosperous societies in human history. That doesn't excuse the persistence of poverty and inequality in this country, but we do need some perspective. A British person with minimal skills, qualifications and personal ambition can attain a standard of living that the vast majority of people in the world would envy.

If you want to believe that you're living in a dystopian hellscape because you can't afford the sort of house you think that you deserve then that's your prerogative.

>>93897

Assuming the train service matches your working schedule, that is. Hope you don't do nights. Or finish after 6. Or start before 9. But what kind of peasant does those kinds of jobs anyway? We all work from home nowadays don't we.

>>93898

Bloody hell really mate? The "starving kids in Ethiopia" argument?

I suppose we should all have just kept living in the old two up two downs, three generations to a house, with outside toilets and tin baths, what right did we have to expect any better? Really the entitlement of the youth these days is shocking isn't it.

[Insert quotes from the Four Yorkshiremen here]

>>93898
Allow me to break it down for you.

1. Living standards are under pressure across the OECD. Keeping up with the Joneses isn't productive.
2. I spent about half my post talking about national divisions which in the UK are particularly skewed. We are literally talking about these divisions.

This thread is full of either some properly sheltered cunts, or otherwise just members of the property owning class arguing in bad faith for the status quo because it is in their financial interest.

Give a man the dole and he'll vote Labour for a day. Give a man a mortgage on a shit mid-terrace in Grimsby, but promise him it'll go up in value every year, and he'll vote Tory for life.

Can't you all just move within driving distance of an airport and get your company to fly you to the locations you need to be in to do your work?

>>93898
Going to take the opportunity to plug my pet theory again, even though I am also of the view that Britain is a dystopian shithole for other reasons:
I suspect that what matters for a sense of wellbeing is not absolute standard of living, but trend. It is all well and good to say to people "Oh chin up now, you're living much better than the average guy in China" - but look at that guy in China, in the past decade his standard of living has increased stratospherically, and year-on-year it continues to rise. Now look to the average Briton, a woman living in a nation that is still enduring the longest wage stagnation since the Napoleonic wars, where many people are still worse off in real terms than they were a decade ago and where the prospects for change seem slim indeed, and it shouldn't come as a surprise why the man in China has a much more positive outlook about the future than the woman in Britain despite the woman in Britain technically living in far superior conditions.

Now instinctively you might say "So the woman is wrong, and she should stop being wrong and learn to appreciate what she has" - but I'm not sure that's actually a practical suggestion. The woman may identify her misery with her absolute condition, but if the feelings arise from the trend then you're not going to get rid of them by appealing to the fact that she's stagnating in a pretty good place - and if you start talking about trends she might even start to envy the man in China who's never known any better, but knows full well what it's like for things to get better.

>>93903
In terms of economics, I have absolutely observed that if the economy is doing well, that doesn't really mean anything to me because if I get 10% richer and so does everyone else, then I am not any richer at all in real terms. If a rising tide lifts all boats by the exact same amount, there's very little reason for someone who's unhappy now to look forward to that.

Margaret Thatcher said that it's not about equality, it's about equality of opportunity. If she meant the same as I mean above, that getting richer is only good if you're getting richer than everyone around you, then Margaret Thatcher was right about that. It feels weird to say, but Margaret Thatcher was right. Shame about all the stuff she was wrong about.

>>93903
If the man lives in Shenzhen then he's already richer than her and will likely continue to get richer. Albeit his quality of life will suffer from a lack of 'live, laugh, love' ornaments.

>>93904
This reminds me of the problem the extremely wealthy suffer in that they underestimate their own status because the people they hang around with are now also rich. If one is to enjoy one's success therefore you must hang around car boot sales rather than the auction houses. Or just not care, a plate of turkey dinosaurs is going to make you smile no matter your bank balance - unless like me you invested your life savings in a certain island theme park.

Anyway, I think the thing is really about hope in the future and while you can get sociopathic about it you're obviously less happy knowing that things are stagnating and you'll never get that 10%. Especially if that 10% has a genuine impact rather meaning slightly more tat from Amazon.

>>93904

>if the economy is doing well, that doesn't really mean anything to me because if I get 10% richer and so does everyone else, then I am not any richer at all in real terms

Only for zero-sum markets like houses in desirable areas. In every other respect, getting richer just means getting richer. Western economies have seen relatively little economic growth since 2008 and countries with very low productivity (like the UK) have seen severe wage stagnation, but we experienced phenomenal growth for most of the 20th century and with it saw vast improvements in our living standards.

>>93903

I'm not sure what we can do about it though. Nearly all western countries have seen slowing economic growth, in large part because of economies like China catching up with us. Tax-and-spend can reduce inequality on a domestic level, but it can't restore our historical status as an imperial power with hugely advanced technology. British people certainly don't want to work as hard as the Chinese and I don't think they're innately cleverer, so how will we improve the productivity of our labour force to make ourselves more competitive and drive economic growth?

Unless and until there's another technological change as transformative as the industrial revolution, I think we just have to get used to the idea of relatively low growth and living within our means.

>>93904

I think that just means you, like a lot of people, are kind of a narcissist honestly. That may not be exactly the right word but I can't think of a better one. I have often noticed it's true that people will just as readily and happily see other people have their situation made worse, as their own situation improved, because the outcome is the same- You are better off than them, and that's what really matters.

In the most primitive monkey brain way, people just care about being higher up the pile than other people, and will push down every bit as much as they try to raise themselves.

It's one of the parts of human nature we absolutely should try to overcome but obviously nobody is interested in doing so, it's all about being able to flash a bigger car than our neighbours to give ourselves the big social status penis. Or, as the case may be, voting to uphold policies and governments that ensure the housing market remains exclusive and difficult to enter, because it means they keep their status over the rentier class.

I've been getting at least a couple of flyers a week from estate agents asking if I want to sell my house for several months now. I bet they're really worried they'll run out of properties to sell.

Michael Gove plans to scrap rules that force developers to build affordable homes

Housing Secretary Michael Gove has triggered a storm with plans to scrap rules that force developers to build affordable homes.

Section 106 regulations ensure that modestly priced properties and community projects are included in large building programmes. But proposals to be outlined in the Queen’s Speech are set to cut the number affordable homes by 50,000 over 10 years.

Mr Gove is planning to replace the scheme with a building levy which would be paid to local authorities. This could allow them to build more social housing. However, critics fear hard-up councils may spend the money on other schemes, such as roads.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/michael-gove-plans-scrap-rules-26841507

>>95742
Doesn't sound so bad if it could ring-fenced. But I don't think right to buy should exist anymore.

>>95742
I wonder if affordable homes are such because they use less energy efficient materials and practices to build?

Boris Johnson planning to bring back Right to Buy

Boris Johnson wants to give millions of people the right to buy the homes they rent from housing associations in a major shake-up inspired by Margaret Thatcher.

The Prime Minister ordered officials to develop the plans in the last fortnight after becoming convinced the idea would help “generation rent”, The Telegraph can reveal. The proposal is intended to give the 2.5 million households in England who rent properties from housing associations the power to purchase their homes at a discounted price. It would be a new version of the famous Thatcher scheme that allowed families to buy properties from councils – one of the most well-known policies of her premiership.

A connected idea being pursued by officials is for the tens of billions of pounds paid by the Government in housing benefit to be used to help recipients secure mortgages.

Downing Street believes the new version of “Right to Buy” would help scores of poorer households in traditional Labour “Red Wall” seats in the Midlands and North East which Mr Johnson won in the 2019 election. If successful, the plans could also drive up the proportion of property ownership in the country – one of the surest indications of someone voting Conservative according to historic electoral analysis.

The Government’s plans for housing reform were left in tatters late last year after a proposed overhaul of planning rules to increase property building was ditched following a backlash from Tory MPs. But in recent weeks Mr Johnson has commissioned his policy unit to pursue one aspect of his overarching housing drive – helping more people to become property owners.

The proposal is not entirely new – it was included in the 2015 Tory election manifesto. Greg Clarke negotiated a deal with housing associations when he was the communities and local government secretary. But momentum behind the drive faded after Theresa May replaced David Cameron as prime minister following the 2016 Brexit referendum.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/01/boris-johnson-planning-bring-back-right-buy/

>>95745

Just in time for the local elections.

>>95746
I think I'm more susceptible to Labour's bribery at the minute.

>>95745
Well, if you think about it once all the housing associations are gone then they'll have to extend right to buy to private renters.

>>95745
I see Putin isn't the only politician recycling shit ideas from the 1980s.

>>95756

Honestly I think that would be a very strong vote winning policy. We should add it to our Housing Justice Part manifesto.

I mean genuinely, think about it, the rent most people are paying is up to double what a mortgage would be on the same place, and the burden of that extra expense is often a big part of what makes it difficult for them to get a deposit together. They can afford it, they just need to be allowed to.

Maybe we should make it a sort of Hire Purchase Agreement sort of thing.

I'll be honest, I have no idea what thread is the most apt for talking about our esteemed PM, but I'm punting for this one.

All I wanted to say before bed was that I don't think his current tactic of calling everyone lazy wankers and instigating mass industrial action is much of a vote winner. I know the Tories are evil, but it's amazing how inept they are at the same time, still, after all this time.

>>95863

Beggars belief doesn't it. If there's one reason they'll lose the next election, it's masking an enemy of the civil service.

Don't they realise that those are the people who actually run the country? Is their hubris so great that they think the decisions they make just automatically come to pass across the land by some kind of divine will?

Even if there's no strike, I suspect a lot of malicious compliance and intentional misunderstandings and so on to further cripple their government.

>>95863
They've found themselves on a real tightrope, due to their unabashed populism in an extremely polarised society. They don't actually believe in anything; they just pretend to believe whatever will win votes. But they need to win votes both from their traditional voters and the Red Wall, simultaneously, while those groups have utterly conflicting demands. This results in a government that openly proclaims support for two opposing viewpoints simultaneously, and does this regularly.

Retired millionaires, key workers, and city-centre shopkeepers all hate people who work from home. We think you are lazy skivers. But there are a lot of you, logging into your work laptop in your underpants for 20 minutes each lunchtime before calling it a day and going to the cinema, so the Conservatives have to appeal to you too. But they'll do that tomorrow. Today, it is the turn of the bitter and angry to be pandered to with bullshit. The government won't actually do anything; they just want to be on the news again.

I'm pretty sure this is the housing thread, by the way, but we do have several threads about housing. I think you want either the thread with the local-elections OP, or one of the "This person is going to be Prime Minister and it's going to be awesome" threads for a story like this.

>>95865

It's a lot simpler than that, the way I see it.

They're populists, or at least have been under Johnson, but populism is easy. You just pick the bigger demographic and go for them. They have all the data they need to do that.

The trouble is the populism they were elected on is totally irrelevant now, so they can't hide behind it anymore. We did the Brexit what we voted for getting done. That's passed into memory now, nobody gives a fuck about "delivering Brexit" anymore, we already Bruxit. So what do they have after that? Fuck all. Because Brexit Brexit Brexit do Brexit get Brexit done Brexit was their entire campaign.

The trouble is it's been ten years, and people are noticing more and more by the day that nothing the waffle on about actually turns up. HS2 has been cut in half and somehow cost us more, while remaining entirely hypothetical. Northern Powerhouse? Where? Can you name even one thing they did to deliver on that? Help to buy? It's fucking fictional.

There's only so long they can coast through on empty promises before people start to wake up to the fact they are empty. Brexit has been their life raft for the last half a decade, and now it's floundering like a punctured lielo you leave in the swimming pool after your fortnight in Benidorm.

Second homes: Tax hikes make holiday lets in Wales unviable, owners say

Holiday-let businesses in Wales will become unviable if planned law changes go ahead, owners have said. The Welsh government plans include a 300% council tax premium on second homes and making it harder for those properties to be eligible for business rates instead of council tax.

Some holiday home owners said they face losing their livelihoods. The Welsh government said the changes would ensure properties were being let regularly as holiday accommodation.

Currently, second home owners can avoid council tax by registering their properties as a business, as long as those properties are let for 70 days per year. Following the proposed changes, this number would increase to 182 days per year to qualify for business rates. The Welsh government has been under pressure to act following protests in holiday hotspots, and it plans to introduce the new legislation in April 2023.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61525903

Won't anyone think of the poor holiday lets owners?

>>95880
I guess they'll just have to sell to someone that'll actually live in there. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

>>95882
The examples in the article include a couple with a B&B and six holiday cottages that are occupied 15 weeks of the year and someone who converted outbuildings on his property to rent out to a charity for disabled children on weekends and school holidays.

>>95880
Those bloody Welsh politicians, with their laws that successfully achieve precisely what they set out to do! This is an outrage!

If the landlords hate it so much, why don't they just work more hours or get a better-paying job?

>>95884
>If the landlords hate it so much, why don't they just work more hours or get a better-paying job?
On a phone call with my letting agency, they told me that some rent arrears were negatively affecting my landlord and I asked them if the landlord had tried budgeting.

Also landlord related, Priti Patel rejected a recommendation from the Grenfell Tower inquiry that renters have what are called personal emergency evacuation plans, or PEEPs for short. They are exactly what their name suggests. As best as I can tell, translating from the governmentese, the "counterproductive" part of implementing these plans would be that landlords would have some responsibilities to their tenents. Patel also heaps blame on the fire service, without explicitly blaming them. Merely stating their need to learn lessons and so on, despite an official one-size-fits-all stay put policy dooming them to failure in the instance of another Grenfell-like event. Conservatives create unsafe housing regulation, cut fire and rescue services to the bone and then reject measures that might prevent the exact same situation from arising again in the future, before blaming the men and women who went into a pitch dark with smoke building trying to rescue people, despite the concerns of some that it could have collapsed around them such was the intensity of the incident. It's actually beyond sickening, it's disturbing. It's institutional callousness at the highest levels and I'm so frustrated that it's only freaks like me who are paying attention to any of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/21/grenfell-families-enraged-by-plan-to-keep-stay-put-policy

>>95886
I try not to pay too close attention to what she's doing because it's always something disgustingly cruel. She's so far beyond the pale.

>>95887
I understand entirely. However, it's important to remember that May or Javid would have been unlikely to have taken a different decision. The only difference is Patel's perma-smirk makes the passive villainy of Conservative inaction more transparent than ever.

>>95888
My previous statement could probably apply to the entire party.